In an attempt to solve this problem, the European Union recently tried to legally force companies to maintain a certain quota of women executives at all times.

According to a recent McKinsey report, although the gender gap is gradually improving throughout the world, there are still issues, such as a high rate of attrition among women in middle management at European firms to the low female labor force participation in Asia, which limits the pipeline of potential leaders.

Here are the percentages of women on corporate boards in a number of major markets:McKinsey